Wendy
McElroy

Preserving Culture, or
Curtailing Freedom?

A father is demanding a
public retraction from the Public Broadcasting
System and threatening to sue for libel after the
network broadcast a show that he says wrongly
portrayed him as an abusive husband and
father.

Dr. Scott Loeliger says
the producers of the show ignored extensive court
findings, records and testimony that he claims
prove it was his ex-wife, and not he, who abused
their daughter and her half-sister. (To view copies
of court documents, testimonials, expert reports
etc., see www.glennsacks.com/pbs/loeliger.php
)

Loeliger, a medical doctor
in Northern California, says he provided
documentation of the mothers abuse to a
co-producer of the show, Breaking the
Silence: Childrens Stories, six months
before it aired, and that his pleas to have his
case removed from the show were
ignored.Aired
by PBS on Oct. 20, the 72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:PffQJJpH1XoJ:www.cptv.org/pdf/BTS_pressrelease.pdf+Tatge+Lasseur&hl=enmuch-publicized documentary presents "children
and battered mothers [who] tell their
stories of abuse at home and continued trauma
within the courts," which allegedly return children
to abusive parents.

A spokeswoman for PBS,
Director of Corporate Communications Jan McNamara,
says the accuracy of "Breaking the Silence" is
under "official review."

In the show,
Loeligers daughter, identified as Amina,
says: "My father has a way of making important
people [believe] he is a good
father and he has never done anything wrong and
that I am almost crazy and
abusive."

But Loeliger says
Aminas mother, lost custody of Amina and her
half-sister on Aug. 19, 1998, when a Tulare County
Juvenile Court (California) found her liable for
eight counts of child abuse, including physical
abuse.

Loeliger received full
custody of Amina in 1998; at Amina's request, full
custody was returned to the mother in 2004.

Last April, provided
documentation of the his ex-wife's abuse to
co-producer Dominique Lasseur of Tatge-Lasseur, a
New York-based production company.

Five letters ensued, two
from Loeliger's attorney, Dennis Roberts. Loeliger
demanded the removal of the segment with Amina and
her mother.

Lasseur responded by
email, "whatever may have happened in "
Amina's early childhood, the courts at
this time are not persuaded by your arguments and
have awarded physical custody to her
mother."

Lasseur gave assurance
that real names would not be used and extended a
disclaimer to Loeliger, who refused to be
interviewed for the documentary. The father
explained, "I didn't want to be on national TV
'outing' my daughter as a liar or debating about
her life."

The disclaimer is
displayed at the end of the segment featuring Amina
and her mother. It reads, "Amina's
father contends that her mother deliberately
alienated her from him. He is trying to regain
physical custody of her through court
proceedings."

The controversy is broader
than one father's protest.

The show argues against
what has become a cause celebre in the father's
rights movement: www.coeffic.demon.co.uk/pas.htm
Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). PAS is said to
occur when one parent willfully causes a child to
become indifferent or hateful towards the other
parent. Father's rights advocates point to PAS to
explain the hostility and accusations expressed by
some children toward alienated parents, usually
fathers. Critics and "Breaking the Silence" contend
that PAS does not exist as a valid psychiatric
Syndrome.

National radio host Glenn
Sacks launched a campaign to protest what he called
the film's "extremely one-sided" "harmful and
inaccurate view of divorce and child custody
cases." In an article entitledwww.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1005/1005pbsdads.htm
"PBS Declares War on Dads", Sacks not only disputed
the premise of documentary -- that courts assign
custody to abusive fathers -- but also its use of
statistics. PBS has reportedly received over 6,000
protest calls, emails and letters.

The documentary's ultimate
credibility may hinge on one question: does it
incorrectly portray Amina's mother as an heroic mom
instead of a child abuser?

Loeliger's argument that
he and the mother have been misrepresented has
precedent. Loeliger says he first learned of the
accusations of his abuse through a Davis Enterprise
www.kourtsforkids.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=143article
(1/20/05) entitled "Teen Turns Tug-of-War Lessons
Into Message." It claimed that Loeliger had
verbally and physically abused his
daughter.

On April 5, the Enterprise
published a retraction and an apology to Loeliger,
stating that the story "contained many factual
inaccuracies."

The stakes on a comparable
apology from PBS are high.

Amina has become one of
the public faces of child abuse promoted by
organizations such as www.courageouskids.net/
Courageous Kids Network (CKN), a California group
that endorsed "Breaking the Silence." CKN is
self-described as "a growing group of young people,
whose childhood was shattered by biased and
inhumane court rulings, which forced us to live
with our abusive parent, while restricting or
sometimes completely eliminating contact with our
loving and protective parent."

Such advocates point to
"Breaking the Silence" as a reason to reform the
family court system. But Loeliger and father's
rights advocates demand verification for the
stories and statistics upon which future policy may
be based.

Both sides are in eloquent
agreement on one point: they wish toprotect children.

* * *

Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute
in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of
many books and articles, including her latest book,
Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century. She lives with her husband in
Canada. E-Mail.
Also, see her daily blog at www.zetetics.com/mac